SDI JUL09.qxd - Soft Drinks International

8 Soft Drinks International – JULY 2009
Africa
INDUSTRY NEWS
Delta buys
Schweppes
Zimbabwe stake
ZIMBABWE’s Delta Beverages, a major
Coca-Cola bottler and brewer, has purchased
a majority shareholding in
Schweppes Zimbabwe but has not been
successful in gaining control of Mutare Bottling
Company, a regional Coke bottler. The
Schweppes Zimbabwe deal brings one of
the country’s best known drinks, Mazoe
Orange, into the Delta stable, along with a
number of other soft drinks.
A South African businessman bought
Schweppes Zimbabwe from Coca-Cola
about five years ago but the company later
came under government control. Delta’s reasoning
behind the Schweppes purchase was
a desire to focus more clearly on its core
beverage business.
In line with that, it has in recent months
made no secret of its desire to offload its
40% stake in Ariston Holding, a diversified
agricultural firm with extensive interests in
tea, coffee, fruit, nuts, flowers, fish, poultry
and vegetable production and distribution.
As we explained at the time, Delta
bought into Ariston – initially seeking a bigger
stake than the 40% it gained – in 2006,
Branded foosball
tables
SOUTH Africa’s Foozi Gaming, which
places free-to-play foosball tables in key
social gathering locations, boosted the
tables’ appeal to advertisers through an
extremely successful showing at this year’s
two Coke Zero Festivals.
As we reported, the festivals were held
in Johannesburg and Cape Town, drawing
very large crowds of young people.
After Foozi approached Coca-Cola with
the idea of placing 10 Coke Zero branded
foosball tables at each festival, the company’s
experiential marketing experts went
ahead with the design, branding and production
of the tables, explained Damon
Freeman who heads up the company under
a number of zany titles. He explained that
the company’s aim was to measure the
response to the tables in a high traffic environment
and to gauge the effects of concentrated
brand exposure.
“We also supplied two Foozi promoters
to engage with consumers, get their details
and enter them into a draw to win their
own Coke Zero Foozi table,” said Freeman.
Unity Square, Harare, Zimbabwe.
partly to expand its activities in a volatile
market but more particularly to gain a ready
source of foreign exchange. Delta was then
having difficulty paying Coke for syrup concentrate
and acquiring other ingredients and
packaging sourced from outside Zimbabwe.
Delta no longer has major problems with
access to foreign funds. For some weeks,
speculation flew in Zimbabwe that Delta
and Econet Wireless, Zimbabwe’s top
telecommunications supplier, were in talks to
achieve a sort of swap-buy deal which
would see the Ariston shares going to
Econet in exchange for Mutare Bottling, in
which Econet obtained a major interest a
“The results of placing our branded tables
at the Coke Zero festivals were far beyond
our own expectations. An average of 4000
Rwanda plant
delayed
OPENING of the Inyange group’s new beverage
plant at Masaka, Rwanda, has been
postponed until September because of
delays in installing the new production
equipment As reported earlier, Inyange has
invested heavily in the complex, which is
couple of years ago.
Both sides were largely silent about this
possibility until Econet’s Chief Executive,
Douglas Mboweni, said that not only was his
company not in a hurry to sell Mutare Bottling
or any of its other assets, but it was
also not especially interested in Ariston. He
acknowledged that Delta had raised the
possibility but said that others were also
interested in Mutare Bottling.
Another possibility seems to be a management
buyout of Delta’s Ariston stake.
While Mutare would have had synergies for
Delta, it is also keen to raise cash to build a
new bottling plant.
games was played at each festival, in the
space of 12 hours. That’s 400 games per
table.”
Of these, about 75% involved four players
while the remainder saw two players
competing against each other. That added
up to 14,000 two-minute exposures for
Coke Zero over 10 Foozi tables, noted
Freeman.
As well as players, some of whom
enjoyed multiple games, a large and changing
crowd of spectators were exposed
directly to the Coke Zero brand with no
distraction. Foozi positions its branded
foosball tables in high-traffic bars, universities,
colleges, taverns, community centres
and other social gathering areas.
about 20km from Kigali, the capital.
When it moves into full operation, most
of the existing facilities at the current
Gikondo plant will be moved to Masaka.
Inyange intends to not only increase output
of its current juice, dairy and mineral
water lines but also to add long-life juices
and other new products. The company
plans to increase exports as well as
enhancing its distribution system within
Rwanda.